Hi all! In my last post, What The Fudge Is Fodder?, I talked about what fodder is and why you would want to use it for animal feed. Remember that when I say fodder, I'm actually referring to sprouted fodder, or sprouted grains.
This time I want to share some information about getting started with a homemade, small-scale fodder system. Most fodder systems currently available for purchase usually produce a minimum of 50-60lb of fodder daily, and cost upwards of $1000. That's a bit much for the homestead farm, but don't despair. A homemade fodder system is easy to put together and comes at a small price.
I first became interested in fodder systems while following my favorite YouTube Channel, Michigansnowpony. I've talked about this channel in other posts. This channel has been a driving force of inspiration for my homestead endeavors, so why should fodder be any different? I followed her source links to Sarah Cuthill's YouTube channel and blog (which are also phenomenal). I will be putting their links at the bottom of this post. If you're truly interested in pursuing or learning about these DIY fodder systems, I would check them out.
My DIY Fodder System Set-Up
Materials Needed:
* Wire shelving
* 7-9 Sturdy plastic containers
* A drip pan/catcher
* Soldering iron or nail & pliers or meat fork
1. Starting out, you need some wire or mesh shelving to hold your fodder containers. You can use anything as long as it fits your containers, has enough shelves and can drain water from shelf to shelf. I've seen people use cooling racks, industrial shelving, garage shelving and more. I'm using the greenhouse shelving we bought earlier this spring with the greenhouse plastic taken off.
2. The next thing you'll need is sturdy plastic containers to hold and sprout your grains in. You can use basically anything. The preference seems to lie with square/rectangular containers, but if you have success using something round (like a butter bowl) I'd love to hear about it. I'm using some plastic casserole containers I bought at Wal-Mart.
3. Now, you need to poke some holes in one end of each container. (The woman at Wal-Mart balked when she found out what we were doing with the containers. She thought I was making some large meal for a get-together. Hehe. Well it is for a meal of sorts.) I started out using a nail that I held inside a pair of pliers. I only had a small nail on hand and was not terribly impressed with the size of the hole that it made. You want your holes to be large enough to drain water without being so large that the grains will slip through. You're looking for a happy medium. I ended up ditching the nail in favor of my kitchen meat fork. I have a cheap one that I rarely use and it was perfect. At any rate, you need to heat up the tool you use, whether it is a nail or a meat fork. I performed the operation next to my stove and it went along quickly.
Some Tips
* be sure to heat up your tool completely. I heated mine for about 20-30 seconds and I was able to puncture 2-3 rows of holes.
* the meat fork worked perfectly because I was able to poke two evenly spaced holes at a time.
* don't force down on the plastic too hard. If it doesn't slide through like butter, it needs to be reheated. Trust me on this one. If your tool is too cold and you force it, you will crack your plastic. (Voice of experience!)
* I made 5 closely spaced rows on mine. I'd say you want anywhere from 3-5 rows depending on the spacing. They don't have to cover half the container.
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| The picture on the bottom right is my original hole poked with a nail. |
4. On the opposite end of the holes you need to add something to keep the containers at an angle. It seems that 10º is suggested, but as Mitch points out, 10º is barely measurable. I think that as long as you don't have some drastic angle and everything is consistent, then any slight angle will do. Michigansnowpony used shims for her set-up (awesome idea). Since I forgot to buy some and I was eager to get started I just used some glue sticks I had handy. I will be changing this very soon though.
5. You want to place your containers in a zig-zag like pattern on the shelving. This will aid in proper draining of the system.
For example:
The first container on the first shelf has its holes facing forward. The container directly below that will have its holes facing to the rear. The container below that one will have its holes facing front and so on.
6. The last shelf or the bottom of the shelving should have some kind of drip pan/catch basin for all of the water that will be draining off. I have a long shallow container that fits I under my shelving.
So, that's it. That is your basic set-up. To learn more you can check out the links below! Thanks for reading.
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